


london foggy

by mostlyunstablefangirl



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlyunstablefangirl/pseuds/mostlyunstablefangirl
Summary: “I think,” Shirley smirks, “Aunt Theo has a girlfriend.”“Are you using me right now as a diversity teaching moment?” Theo asks.“I always do.”Slightly AU. This story is just as much about Theo & Shirley as it is about Theo/Trish.
Relationships: Shirley Crain & Theodora "Theo" Crain, Theodora "Theo" Crain/Trish Park
Comments: 1
Kudos: 170





	london foggy

**Author's Note:**

> I made Trish Vietnamese because her actress is actually Vietnamese and appears very Vietnamese to me. I also know nothing about Korean culture and didn't want to butcher it.

“Damnit, damnit,  _ God _ damnit,” Theo mutters, stomping her way into her favorite coffee shop.

“Why’s it such a big deal?” Shirley asks, voice coming in staticky over the phone. Theo can hear the grimace in her tone. She’s probably in the downstairs of the funeral home.

“You  _ know _ \--” Theo snaps, then realizes she is being ten decibels too loud and continues in a harsh whisper. “You know why it’s a big deal. I don’t see why you insist on pretending you don’t.”

Theo means forgetting her gloves. That forgetting her leather gloves at home is a big deal. Especially when she wanted to get coffee this morning, and too many gross people are milling about inside the little stand. Claustrophobia hits her from the inside out, starting as a fullness in her chest.

“I’m not  _ pretending _ , we had this conversation,” Shirley reminds her. “Don’t you use the sensory thing for your job, anyway?”

“It’s horrific, when it happens by surprise,” Theo mutters. “And I wanted to run a few other errands today.”

“Okay, well,” there’s a shuffle and a sigh, “I can drop them off on my way to my therapist later. Is 2:30 okay?”

A wave of relief -- and nauseatingly, love -- comes over Theo. “That’s perfect. Thank you, Shirl.”

“Mmkay,” Shirley laughs, and Theo feels embarrassed when she realizes that her sister understands the magnitude of her thanks. “See you then. Buh-bye.”

It happens, foreseeably, when Theo goes to hand her card to the barista, a petite Asian woman with a plethora of sick tats.

She’s just ordered her  _ London fog, pump of lavender, English breakfast instead of Earl Grey, please  _ because God knows she wouldn’t be able to handle her caffeine today, when the thoughts strike.

She’s had her fair share of people’s sexual thoughts about her, considering she looks like  _ a darker-haired, softer Angelina Jolie  _ (their words, not hers). And she’s certainly had those come in a form of projecting their childhood hurdles onto her as well.

This time is a little bit different.

Theo sees her own lips, plump and matte and entirely more gorgeous than she perceives them to be in the mirror. Her charcoal eyelashes, elongated by mascara, but the other woman doesn’t know that or seem to care. A little girl in traditional Buddhist garb, hair done up in pigtails. Sticky rice dyed orange and sickly sweet. She asks her mother does she have to go to Vietnamese school today. Theo can understand the response in a foreign tongue, though it’s almost like hearing underwater. The mother has high cheekbones and a stark, cold manner, with a burgeoning love just underneath the surface. The face warps into Theo’s and back again.

“Um, sorry about that,” the woman says, blushing heavily from the touch.

“No worries,” Theo says, for the first time actually meaning it.

“I’ll have that right out for you.”

Theo can’t forget her.

She still devotes her playtimes to the children, and listens intently to the things they can’t say.

Annie Rogers’s  _ The Unsayable  _ rests on her bookshelf, but above child-height. She glances up at it with a reminder to herself to jot notes for thirty minutes after this session.

“I don’t think the dolls should hit each other,” Theo murmurs gently. “Even if they’re frustrated. How can they use their words to express that they’re mad?”

The little girl named Mercedes regards her silently.

“Can I see?” Theo requests, holds her ungloved hand out.

The brush of hands tells Theo that Mercedes is wary of her, but warming. She holds back a wince at Mercedes’s tortured past, which comes in another onslaught.

“Please ask before you come in my room next time,” Theo models, using a funny, high-pitched voice.

“But your room is funner than mine. And I was looking for mommy,” Mercedes responds quietly and humorlessly.

“Mommy went to the store. Let’s go play in your room and then next time we can play in mine. I’ll clean it and put away my special toys that I don’t want younger kids to touch.”

They walk their Barbies’ pointed toes across the wooden dollhouse that Theo’s father made for her office. Mercedes giggles as Theo bounces her Barbie on the bed. “We’re not s’post to do that.”

“Oh, sorry,” Theo says. “Good remembering. That’s dangerous.”

She glances up just in time to see Mercedes’s mother and Shirley both lingering in the hallway.

“Looks like our time is up today. Would you like to come in next week again? You didn’t even make anything with my clay yet.”

She ushers Mercedes out with a few niceties and reminders to her mother.

Shirley approaches with a smile. “You’re good with ‘em.”

“You would be, too. We know a thing or two about what they’ve been through.”

Shirley nods once, with a glance at the floor. Ever determined to forget. Snapping out of it, she rummages through her purse for the precious gloves.

“Thanks,” Theo sighs happily. “Hey. How long were your shifts as a barista?”

“In college? No more than six hours.”

Theo broods.

“Oh, this is good. You’re avoiding an old flame?”

Theo smirks. “No, not quite.”

Just as a disappointed Theo turns to exit the coffee shop, a voice asks, “Are you looking for someone?”

The woman materializes from the back of the store, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

Theodora Crain, playgirl extraordinaire, actually reddens. “Um, yeah. You were my server this morning.”

The nameplate on her apron reads “Trish.” Her face suddenly becomes guarded. “Oh, gosh. We’re closing, but I can make you something if we got your order wrong earlier.”

“Oh! No, exceptional service. Really,” Theo rushes out. She steps closer to the counter. “This might be inappropriate, but would you like to go...out sometime?”

Trish pushes her hair back behind her ear with a smile, pleasant surprise blossoming on her face.

Theo prepares for the  _ I’m straight  _ spiel.

“I’d love to. We can discuss more over the phone?” Trish’s eyes flit, presumably, to her supervisor.

“Yes, sounds good,” Theo says stiffly, and goes to write her number down on a napkin.

“What was your name, again?”

“I’m Theodora,” she says, and can’t help herself -- she slips a hand out of one glove and extends it.

“Trish,” Trish says curtly, biting her smile to hide it.

Theo is surprised by the unrestrained glee in the handshake, despite the put-together nature that physically presents itself before her.

She excuses herself and leaves smiling.

“What are you so giddy about, Aunt Theo?” Shirley asks with an aggravating (cute) smile, looking to the kids for confirmation. They giggle through their organic, gluten-free macaroni.

“Aunt Theo” feigns indignance. “Nothing!”

“ _ I  _ think,” Shirley smirks, “Aunt Theo has a girlfriend.”

The children whoop and make a chorus of the sentiment.

“Are you using me right now as a diversity teaching moment?” Theo asks.

“I always do.” Shirley takes a swig of her wine.

Trish knows how to move on the dance floor, keeping time with her waist and undulating hips against Theo’s.

For a few hours, Theo forgets all the tragedy and unspoken Crain family drama.

Theo runs her hand over the heavily inked hips and feels the fleeting pain that Trish endured to achieve them. A gunshot rings out in Trish’s memory -- Trish’s brother belonged, briefly, to one of the neighborhood’s Vietnamese gangs. The Japanese-style phoenix is for him, rising from the ash of his mistakes.

Theo brushes fingers over jet-black hair and sees years of refusal to get a haircut. She touches an ample hip to see the recovery from a near-eating-disorder in high school. It all makes for quite the interesting story. Nothing perfect, nothing simple, yet all culminating in a fairly straightforward person. Because Trish doesn’t really lie. Doesn’t really feel the need to.

It’s all the more flattering when Trish tells her that she’s gorgeous.

Theo wonders if she’ll ever explain the sensory thing, or if she’ll just need to slowly pull all of these stories out of Trish in words.

On their third date, Shirley is waiting at the end of the drive.

“Hi,” Trish calls out, because she’s friendly like that.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Shirl teases, because she’s annoying like that.

“Why are you still up?” Theo asks. “Drinking alone?”

“Wouldn’t dream of drinking without you. No, I just wanted to make sure you got home.” Indeed, Shirley gets up to stretch, sweater rising an inch above her midriff. She winces, just long enough for Theo to catch.

“Something hurt?”

“Did something weird to my neck in my sleep, I think. It’s been two days.”

“You want me to check it out?”

“No, I know you hate doing that.”

“I doubt I’ll find anything that bugs me this time,” Theo says carefully, meaning that she won’t glimpse their dead mother in Shirley’s pinched nerve.

She reaches out to palpate the side of Shirl’s neck, and is surprised that the twinge of pain almost makes her cry out. Shirley has a much stronger pain tolerance than she does. She’s always had to.

“You’re clenching your teeth in your sleep again,” Theo observes. “Stressed about money. Didn’t you just get a new client, though?”

“Yeah,” Shirley sighs gratefully. “I just...you know. Always try to throw in a little something extra for them.”

“You’re good at your job. It takes an extremely compassionate person.”

Shirley, as expected, brushes off the compliment. “Well, I’ll let you two get inside.”

“Good night,” Theo says.

“Good night, you two,” Shirley says, and retreats with a smirk.

“You two are close, aren’t you?” Trish asks when they get inside to the guest house.

“Yeah,” Theo murmurs thoughtfully, “I guess we are.”


End file.
